Mayor Gruendl is at it Again

At the September 3 City Council meeting, during my 3-minute window in Business from the Floor, the mayor interrupted me in the middle of my first sentence to scold me, saying in part that the Council is “trained” on how to interact with the public and that I had “asked for that.” We would like to know whether the Council’s “training” includes how to effectively launch a smear campaign against private individuals via newspaper quotes, press conferences, and social media.

In a recent post on the “Mayor Scott Gruendl” official Facebook page, he wrote that I have called the city manager a liar. “Liar” is his word, not mine. What I have done in my three 3-minute free speech sessions is identify specific, verifiable instances wherein the city manager lied to a Council member and the public during a meeting, lied to staff, and lied to the media. The Mayor’s attempt in the Facebook rant to label the flex schedule debacle a “procedural error,” and to state he found the City Manager had not lied, does not withstand the facts. (For that story, click here.)

If he would care to debate that, or any of my public comments, I would be happy to engage him in a public forum, and we can let the citizens decide for themselves what is true. Again, every accusation I have made is verifiable, and I am floored that he answers me with personal attacks and proceeds to circle the wagons around the City Manager.

The Mayor is the one making baseless accusations, not me. He has accused the three of us of causing “physical and emotional harm” by our requests for public information, of “hijacking” business from the floor, and of “encouraging hateful individuals among us to act.”

He attempted to tie our protected speech to racism, threats, and violent crimes, including “personal attacks on family members, vandalism of property, and hospitalization of city officials.”

He accused us of playing “a major role in wrongdoing at City hall and contributing to the hostility towards the great city employees” and said he “observed [us] violating public personnel standards.”

Finally, he accused us of having “contributed to loss of revenue or level of debt or impeded [his] ability to perform the responsibilities of [his] office.” What’s next, will he use the power of his office to have us investigated by the police?

As I have written before, we are former employees who paid a very dear price to stand at that podium and speak openly, without fear of retaliation. We hope he is prepared to defend his public remarks, as we are prepared to defend ours. If he takes issue with what we say, he can question or challenge us while we are able to respond; otherwise, we would thank him to listen politely and knock off the ad hominem attacks. His efforts to “manage” us will fail.